I Have A Problem...or Do I?

Whenever we're expecting company, which isn't very often, I go bonkers with the cleaning and organizing. I enjoy having the extra push in productivity and love getting a lot of my dreaded-major projects done all at once, but man it's exhausting!


I spent all day today cleaning out the pantry, washing bedding, getting groceries, and restoring order after all of that...our house has never looked this good before. Our recycling bin is bursting, so I actually sent a load of it home with Robyn when she picked Landon up to play today.

{I babysat 3 kids this afternoon}

My legs and feet are throbbing, and I'm ready for bed, so I may just have to leave the door open for them and head to bed. This is a common problem for me when I host something. I had actually started planning ahead for their visit, but I originally thought they were coming on Wednesday, so the switch to Monday night sped things up considerably.


Another bonus to having all of this stuff done now is that I'm a month ahead for Kristi's arrival for Women's Conference next month. Usually I'm scrambling to get everything ready for her visit, but all this work now has put me significantly ahead and has got me excited about our Women's Conference weekend.

**Do you go into hyper drive when
guests are coming to stay?
What is your most dreaded project?**

Comment Window Tidbit: Today is one of those days where I feel like I physically earned a good night's sleep!

A Gift to Myself

Last night was the final class in the 8 week organizing class I've been attending with Collette, Michelle and Jenn. I am seriously sad it's over, and think I will crash some of the classes when the teacher starts it up again March 17th in Riverton (check out her blog for info). I am bummed that I missed the first class in the series, so I want to hear that one, plus I think I could use a refresher on some of the other classes as well. It has been great to have a weekly influx of great ideas that I can put to use immediately.


Michelle already did a mega post explaining how the "Brain Box" works, along with her notes from the cleaning class, so I'm not going to rewrite all of that here. Instead I'm going to tell you why I think it's such a genius idea...it frees up a whole lot of clutter going on in my brain! It puts order to the revolving to-do list of household projects that normally weighs on me, and thus allows me to manage my house easily and effectively. Not too shabby eh?


For example, these are my cards from today. I have designated Thursdays as my bathroom cleaning days because I'm usually home on Thursdays and like to have things clean for the weekend, especially since we usually have a house full of people here on Fridays for game night and I am usually at Michelle's house for Creative Friday all day Friday. In fact, I don't have any jobs in my box on Fridays because of that.


These are the cards behind my February tab, and I am realizing I only have a couple days left to do these jobs because I've only had my box made for 2 weeks.

It shouldn't be so hard to manage everything, and I have never really thought it was, because my house is fairly small and my kids are both in school all day, but after making these cards I realized how all those big clean-out jobs (i.e., closets, garage, pantry) were taking up space in my head and nagging at me unnecessarily. Now I have them scheduled to be done throughout the year so I don't have to fret about them...this is soooo liberating!


Now I know that in March I will be planning flowers for spring, that I will be making General Conference kits for the ladies I visit teach so that it doesn't sneak up on me, and cleaning off our laundry room shelf (which I NEVER do). All of that is totally manageable, but in the usual time warp of my life doesn't get done or gets done in a panic rather than in an enjoyable manner.


I mapped out my cards for April with big jobs like thoroughly cleaning the kids' room, preparing the flower beds for planting, shampooing the carpets, and washing the blinds because I know I'll be in a total frenzy at the end of the month when Michelle and Kristi come to stay with me for Women's Conference. Now there will be no need for freaking out because I will get those jobs done earlier in the month and will be relaxed and happy the day of their arrival.

I'm embarrassed that all of this is such a revelation to me, especially since I fancy myself such a good housekeeper, but this simplifies things in a way I have never experienced before, and really who couldn't benefit from looking at things in a new way?

When writing our cards we downloaded a list from Martha Stewart Living for more job ideas. It made me thankful that I have a small house, but also had some great ideas.

The whole purpose of the organizing class was to teach us how to use our time more effectively so that we have more time to serve others and do the things we want to do. I completely understand the beauty of this thinking and am experiencing it already as I have implemented the Brain Box system. Now I get my jobs done, feel rather accomplished, then have the rest of the day to do the things that come my way or that I wanted to do in the first place (good mail perhaps?).

**Do you have a system?
What jobs would be on your list?
Do you feel mentally cluttered by the to-dos in your life?**

Comment Window Tidbit: I already made dinner today and it's only 2:45! This is an earth-shatteringly great thing for me, why don't I do this every day?

Creative Friday--Thursday Edition

Michelle and I got together today for "Creative Friday" because I will be going to help during Whitney's class' Valentine party at 2:30 and we didn't want to have to cut our day short.

It ended up being great that we switched things around because I was working on a project very late last night and then was so revved up I couldn't sleep until around 3:00am, which means I'll probably be zombie-like tomorrow but did great today.

Eva joined us for our self-portrait today.

Michelle had this cute plate full of conversation hearts on her table and I just had to take a picture. I knew she had probably had it out to create a brilliant blog banner (which she did), but must say that what they lack in taste they make up for in visual delight.


Because Michelle has had a crazy, Smotherhood-filled week of sick kids and because I changed our day at the last minute, I decided to bring lunch for us. I went with Taco Amigo because it's tasty and because .99 cent tostadas, tacos and cheese burritos are a good deal...but my presentation skills need work.


Today Michelle and I both giddily worked on making our house cleaning file boxes that we learned about during last night's organizing class (are you intrigued or disgusted?).


I'll have to explain the system in more detail in another post, but I will say it's easy, brilliant and an office-supply lover's dream!


Eva joined us for dinosaur drawing and coloring. She knows everything about dinosaurs, and can pronounce huge dinosaur names without stumbling.


I really thought I'd have time to write some thank you notes today, but I spent the entire 3.5 hours working on this box!

**Are you intrigued or disgusted by the box?
Can you pronounce dinosaur names?
Are you helping at any Valentine parties?
Do you enjoy tacos, tostadas and cheese burritos?**

Comment Window Tidbit: It turns out the problem with my sidebar was because last week's Five for Friday post title was too long! Go figure! I just went in and shortened it and the problem was solved!

Don't forget Friday is the 12th so it's the day to work on Amy's fabulous 12 on the 12th project (click the link for info and the template).

Saturday Rewind

My Saturday was a rather fabulous, obligation-free, day at home--why do those seem so rare lately?



Austin had slept over the night before and spent the day going back and forth from playing with Landon to playing with Whitney. (Notice Whitney's homemade castle creation in the foreground, complete with Lego ladder and cardboard slat bridge.)


Landon's friend came over to join the boys (the three of them have played together multiple times) and they ended up playing Sing Star, football, video games, and hide and seek. (And yes, we STILL have our Christmas stuff up.)


I spent most of the day organizing my studio and reconfiguring one of my stamp shelves. I recently visited Jenn's house and saw that she had taken off a bunch of her stamps so she can sell them, and then put a various fun supplies and decorative items on the shelves instead. It was so fun doing the same thing on mine (we have the same shelves, Randy built them for us years ago).


I haven't dusted the stamp shelves in years because the stamps are placed on their so
precariously that moving them means a stamp avalanche. It was disturbing and satisfying to clean the dust away, ew.


I listened/watched Season 3 of The Office while I worked, and loved it. I had totally forgotten about Dwight taking Ryan to his beet farm for a sales initiation and having his bizarre cousin Mose come out to wrestle him. I watched that part over and over.

Hours later, here is the finished shelf.

Randy was nice enough to go to Xpedx for me to replenish my cardstock and envelope supply. I hate running out of that stuff because it's pricey to refill, but I have etsy orders to fill so I had to do it. I love seeing my full inventory.


We had game night on Saturday instead of Friday, so we had a serious house full.


Robyn and Lori had gone to a movie with some book club friends, so only Adam, Amy, Jared, Randy and I started out with nachos and Quiddler.

The boys did their thing.

And the girls did theirs.

After Robyn and Lori came over we took this temperament test.

It was funny, enough said.

We did this about 10 years ago, but the results were pretty much the same.

Megan (aka queen of crazy faces) sidled up next to me to request another granola bar. There is just so much Megan!

Adam did this drawing while we totaled up our scores.

This is a random shot I took at the end of the evening when Adam and Jared were trying to wrangle the kids so they could go home, I always find this funny because the kids don't want to clean up, they're tired, they can't find their shoes and we're all just "done" for the night.

**What did you do on Saturday?
Have you ever wrestled "fear"?
Do you have a crazy face maker at home?**

Comment Window Tidbit: Good grief, it's Monday again!

Rain, Solitude & SEP

This was a glorious day for me. I had no obligations for the day so I got to stay, rain was in the forecast and the kids were at school...deeeelightful.

I checked my email when the kids left for school and planned on blogging about bookclub, but then talked myself out of blogging until I'd cleaned for awhile and taken a shower. (Oh foolish, foolish girl.) I was promptly punished for my practicality by the fates via lightning, because by the time I was ready to blog (around 11:00) my internet was down! I thought it was probably temporary so I didn't fret (it's probably good that I didn't know it would end up being 7 freakin days).


I put a dvd (Just Friends & Sliding Doors) in the computer and started cleaning my scrap room. I realize this process is insanely ongoing, but I usually enjoy it so I don't fret about it. It would be nice if it was ever actually all the way done, but since I don't have solutions for some of my storage issues that's just not happening. I made some good progress and thoroughly enjoyed myself in the process, but am still left with some things that don't have a home.


It rained off and on during the day, so I was thrilled with that. I had the windows open and was loving the smell and the breeze. The bummer was that it didn't last. It kept getting sunny again. I know that's a silly thing to be bothered by, but is it so wrong to one a completely rainy day? I kept turning on lamps and loving the gray feel of the day only to have the house get bright again, turn off the lamps, mentally readjust and then have it go gray again. Aargh!


Adam called in the afternoon to see if I was going to be around because he had some time to kill before his planning commission meeting in town and wanted to stop by. He picked up some Nachos from Los Hermanos (so tasty and good) and came over to hang out. We chatted for awhile and then he said, "I've got quite awhile still, so this is kind of a long "stop by". We moved to a more comfy seating situation and then got into some quality SEP. I have found that I'm not very keen on discussing mine in a group setting (like game night), but do fairly well when it's one on one with Adam. At one point he said to me (I actually wrote it down)...

"You are far more difficult than you'll ever be willing to admit."

You'd think a comment like that would knock me to my knees, but instead it cracked me up. Only Adam (and maybe Claudia) could say something like that to me without sending me in to the fetal position. I can't even remember the context of his statement, just the sincerity of it. Even though he occasionally says things like this to me, it's not in a confrontational way, more just a matter of fact, plus he still feels like he's on my side as someone who sees potential in me. Good times.

**How do you handle blunt comments about yourself?
Are you okay with comments from
some people more than others?
Do you prefer the weather to commit to all one way?

Disoriented

My sleeping woes have escalated. Last night I took 2 Tylenol PMs (for the first time) and after sleeping for an hour woke up feeling restless and fighting the "Jimmy Arm." I moved out to the couch (this helps) and watched tv for a little while then fell asleep (victory) until 6:00am. I then moved back to my bed and slept until 8:45. Apparently I'd been pressing snooze for 45 minutes and had no recollection of doing that. I had to get Whitney to her first soccer practice of the season by 9:00, plus I had to stay to help. Needless to say I looked horrifying and greasy. It ended up being really hot, even though it was still morning so I'm actually glad I hadn't gotten to shower and get ready, otherwise I would have had to start over.


The kids and I went grocery shopping and ran into some of their friends from church. They ended up inviting both kids over to their house after shopping (woohoo). So I had 2.5 hours of solitude to unload the groceries and to start dismantling my scrapbook room in order to accommodate my birthday dresser (which Randy finally finished putting together last night). It's major upheaval in my house right now because of all the stuff I had to take out of my room, but I am optimistic. The drawers are nice and big (they even have yellow stripes on the bottoms) so I've been able to fit a lot more in them than I had even anticipated. It's just hard for me to know what should go where because I seem to have so many miscellaneous items.

{My drawer of envelopes and stationery!}

Michelle actually volunteered to come over tomorrow to help me with this project for Creative Friday. I think I'm still going to need her help even though I got a good jump on the project, because this may be beyond me.

**Any organizing tips?
Sleeping tips?**